As they walked into the main ops room, they drew the attention of the remaining three Titans, who had gathered together in preparation for movie night. Cyborg paused in his journey to the kitchen to get a soda to look at the tardy Titans. He glanced down at their still joined hands and gave Beast Boy a big toothy grin. The changeling became flustered for a moment as he let go of Raven's wrist and went to the kitchen to grab a slice of leftover pizza and berate Cyborg.
Raven, by comparison was unaffected, too deep in thought to care what her teammates thought. She had been about to get herself some tea, but didn't want to interrupt Beast Boy's poorly hidden whisper-yelling at Cyborg, who was unable to hold back his giggles. Instead, she opted for the easier option of sitting on the end of the couch, a few seats down from Robin and Starfire. She glanced over at the couple; Starfire was leaning on Robin's shoulder and their fingers were interlaced. She caught Starfire's eye and the Tamaranian pointedly looked at Beast Boy and back with a knowing smile. Raven tried to play it off like she was oblivious to Starfire's meaning by raising an eyebrow, but her blush gave her away. Starfire only smiled and returned to leaning against Robin's shoulder. Raven tried to reign in her imagination and think of which movie she would pick since Beast Boy had promised that she could decide.
Though she wasn't a huge fan of many of the popular movies for movie night, she wanted to pick a movie that they all would like. Horror was out of the question. The haunted house she had accidentally created the last time they watched one still haunted their nightmares. She hated all the action films they watched; too many explosions and ditzy girls. She glanced over at the shelf of movies and her eyes were drawn to the Disney section. Raven levitated off the couch and drifted over to the cabinet. Opening the door, she scanned the Disney Blu-rays they had. She picked up the first two on the shelf and looked down at them. Beauty and the Beast and Frozen. She chuckled at the irony of her choices. The two Disney movies that mirrored her situation the most.
Floating back to the couch with the movies, Raven waited for Cyborg and Beast Boy to get the snacks together before she asked the team's opinion on that night's movie. The boys returned to the couch with the largest bowl they could find filled with popcorn, multiple boxes of movie theater candy, five solo cups, a few bottles of soda and one deluxe bottle of mustard for Starfire. She raised her eyebrow with surprise that they expected to finish so much sugar and salt in one night. Beast Boy noticed her shock and merely chuckled. She noted that his joyful laugh had not changed even though his voice had and she smiled. Picking up the movies, Raven walked in front of the TV.
"I've narrowed my choice down to two movies. Beauty and the Beast or Frozen?" She said in her usual monotone.
Her teammates looked back and forth at the two boxes in her hands. Starfire was the first to speak up.
"I have not done the watching of the Beauty and the Beast in quite some time. I cast my vote for that option!" She said, taking a sip of mustard with her bendy straw.
"I guess I want to watch Frozen. Come on Star, we can have it on sing-along mode!" Cyborg said, trying to entice the alien princess into switching choices.
"Can we not also set that option on the Beauty and the Beast movie?"
"Well, yeah, but… theres no Olaf in Beauty and the Beast…" Cyborg mumbled, defeated. Robin looked back and forth between his girlfriend and his best friend and shrugged.
"I don't really know which I want to watch. I'll be good with whatever" he stated plainly.
"And that leaves the vote down to Beasty. Come on BB, you know you wanna watch some Frozen don'tcha?" Cyborg prodded. He nudged his friend's arm with his elbow, but Beast Boy ignored the motion for the most part. He was staring straight at Raven as if trying to understand her reasoning in choosing the movies. She could almost see the wheels turning in his head as he tried to figure out what it would each choice would mean to her. Just then his ear twitched as the water heater began to whistle. She was usually the only one to use it for tea, but it seemed that the others were using it to heat up water for cocoa. Beast Boy jumped up immediately.
"Uh, heh! Sounds like the water's done. I'll just make the cocoa while I decide," he said, boosting himself over the back of the couch with one arm to get away from expectant eyes of Starfire, Cyborg and herself, the former two having leaned towards him, pressuring him to choose their movie. He busied himself in the kitchen with mugs and cocoa packets.
This is just a coincidence right? I mean, its gotta be, this is Raven we're talking about. She couldn't even stand me for the first few years we knew each other, she's not just suddenly love me or anything. Geez, I'm probably reading into this way too much…
The changeling had five of the tower's identical grey mugs lined up and he smiled as he poured the contents of five cocoa packets into each respectively. They would have to have another movie night when their creations from Paint-a-Mug returned. Then they wouldn't have to use such plain, boring mugs. He tore the corner off of the last cocoa packet and reached for the mug on the end of the row. But he was rather shocked to be interrupted by the back of a small hand. Before he looked, he knew who it was, but he looked anyway.
"Uh, hey, Rae," Beast Boy said as the butterflies in his stomach fluttered. He noticed his hand was still lingering on hers and he retracted it quickly. He thought he saw the corners of her mouth twitch and perhaps a little pink on her cheeks under the shadow of her hood, but he must have imagined it because it was gone a moment later. She lifted the mug from the counter where he had set it and cradled it in both hands towards her chest.
"I was planning on tea; your cocoa packets are too sweet for my tastes," She said simply, moving towards the water heater on the opposite counter.
"Oh, uh, no worries! I'll just add this to mine. Makes it more chocolatey… but I guess you wouldn't like that… yeah…" He trailed off awkwardly and started watching her absentmindedly. He wished he could be as collected as she was, but instead he was a big green ball of awkward.
"So did you pick a movie?"
Beast Boy was startled from his thoughts with her question and he hurriedly tried to busy himself when he realized he was staring at her.
"I, uh… not yet. They're both just so good, you know?" He said, flustered. What was it he needed to do? Oh yeah, hot water. Which Raven was conveniently using. He turned around and saw that she was still looking the other way, reaching for her box of tea packets, and he had panicked for no reason. He sighed. He was glad she was oblivious to this kind of thing because he was certain he was an open book. The corner of his mouth twitched as he realized his joke of sorts. He was a book and Raven liked to read… in hindsight, it wasn't very funny. She turned around to face him with her now steaming mug of tea. He smelled her familiar vanilla scent mixed with the smell of her tea leaves, which alone was enough to make him a little crazy without the fact that she had just put her hood down.
"Well, pick fast. Unless you want star bolts and cybeams to start flying," Raven said, glancing over at the couch. Cyborg and Starfire were arguing over which of the two movies was better while Robin, avoiding conflict, had just returned with a few blankets because Starfire had mentioned being cold a bit ago.
"Don't worry, I'll be done soon!" Beast Boy said, reaching around her for the water heater. The action turned out to be poorly planned because he almost growled at the closeness of her scent. Luckily she didn't notice and was going to stand beside Robin to watch the argument. Beast Boy shook his head at his own stupidity and went to start pouring water into the cups, stirring the mixtures with a spoon simultaneously.
Alright. So, movie… Normally I would pick Frozen for Cy, but… What does RAVEN want me to pick? Frozen, the girl who's isolated because of her powers learns that she can control them with love instead of fear, and then her hyper sister ends up with the dude. And Beauty and the Beast, the girl who's a little different and likes to read gets swept off her feet by the Beast that she originally doesn't like and he ends up being pretty cool. Wow, those match up with our situation in so many ways its not even funny.
Beast Boy turned and opened a cupboard and grabbed the bag of marshmallows from it, in the back of his mind feeling proud that he could finally reach that shelf. He started dropping marshmallows into the mugs as he thought.
`Well, controlling powers with love is cool, but Elsa doesn't end up with the guy, while in Beauty and the Beast, the girl ends up with not only the dude, but a dude that starts out as a beast. Thats pretty close to how I want things to end up… so I guess that one's the winner.
Coming out of his daydream with his decision, Beast Boy realized that he'd dropped a mound of marshmallows into the same mug. He raised his eyebrows, but let it slide; he'd give that to Starfire. He added marshmallows to the other mugs and carried the them down, two in each hand.
"But Frozen has not only a love story, it has sisterly love thrown in there too! Not to mention some plot twists and significantly better graphics!" Cyborg stated, disbelieving that Starfire wouldn't change her decision.
"However the Beauty and the Beast movie has also the love story! The characters are most charming and their transformations are the clever as well!" Starfire argued. Robin and Raven continued to watch, their gazes turning to Beast Boy pleadingly to end the argument. The green man set the mugs on the table and tried to get the attention of the two.
"Cut it out guys! It doesn't matter which one is better, 'cause I pick Beauty and the Beast!" He said, noting Starfire's squeal of delight and Cyborg's face palm, but all the while trying to gauge Raven's reaction. She seemed to be her normal calm self, but he thought she might have brightened just a bit at his movie choice. That, or she was just happy that Starfire and Cyborg had stopped fighting.
"Joy!" Starfire clapped her hands and snuggled into the pink blanket Robin handed her. The boy wonder sat down next to her as she opened the blanket for him to share. Beast Boy turned his attention to Cyborg, who had crossed his arms and was grumbling to something to himself about Olaf. He handed his robotic friend the first mug of cocoa.
"Aw, don't be like that Cy. It's a classic!"
"Yeah, yeah, just play the movie."
"And set the movie to the Sing-a-long setting for friend Cyborg! He expressed the interest in the singing earlier!" Starfire piped in.
Beast Boy passed out the rest of the cocoas, grabbed a dark green blanket and the remote and flopped down on the couch, much to the irritation of the empath who had already sat down and now had a green gremlin inside her personal bubble. Oblivious, Beast Boy set up the movie. He turned to Raven with a cheeky grin on his face.
"Don't fall asleep, Rae."
"If I wanted to sleep I wouldn't be here now. Try worrying about yourself," She responded plainly, her irritation thinly veiled. This amused Cyborg, who failed miserably to contain his snicker from the other side of the changeling.
"Ooh, B, she got you good!"
Beast Boy sunk into his seat on the couch, his childish pout illuminated by the green light from the preview screen flashing across the television. Everyone's cocoa was on the table, mostly forgotten.
Raven looked over the faces of her teammates while she waited for the movie to actually begin. Starfire and Robin were snuggled together under the pink blanket. Starfire was enthralled by the colorful preview to an older movie that played across the screen, but Robin was more intent on gazing affectionately at his girlfriend, amused at her fascination. They were both radiating happiness and affection that clouded her mind a bit so she quickly moved on from them. Cyborg was sitting on the opposite end of the couch, keeping a bit of a distance between himself and Beast Boy. He looked comfortable with his arms draped across the back of the couch and eating the occasional sugary or salty snack. His aura was definitely more relaxed than he had been in a while, probably due to the low crime rate recently.
Beast Boy, though she had tried to ignore him, had become too attention worthy to escape her notice any longer. Though she would never admit it, Raven did enjoy having Beast Boy around, and the close proximity was mildly annoying but mainly because it made her stomach flutter nervously. She hated that feeling.
Without looking directly at him so not to give him the fuel to taunt her about checking him out, she noticed the pout he had been trying so hard to keep on his face was fading as his anticipation for the movie grew. Now, even with his bottom lip jutted out and his fang peeking from his lip, he looked excited because of his widened, bright eyes. She hoped she hadn't hurt his feelings too much with her biting commentary. In retrospect, she had begun being even more sarcastic and critical of him since she had started feeling different around him to try to hide her budding emotion. As the Disney castle in all its splendor played across the screen, the familiar music that made children's (and Starfire's) hearts soar, Raven tore her attention from Beast Boy to the screen.
She really did enjoy this movie. As she watched, she couldn't help but marvel at how similar her situation was to the movie. She had only recently noticed the connections that involved Beast Boy as well, but that was obviously not why she chose this as an option. Obviously. It's not like she picked the two Disney movies that she related to most to get him to choose, hopefully subconsciously, whether there was a possibility of them being together or whether the love that she felt was strictly platonic. It's not like she knew that Starfire and Cyborg would argue over the movies, Robin would stay neutral to stay at peace with both his best friend and his girlfriend, and the decision would be left to a certain green animorph. No no, of course not. Only crazy people planned out things like that in a few moments. Or desperate empaths. Oh Azar, she was in deep.
She supposed it was understandable though; he was indeed Raven's first crush and she wasn't one to throw emotion around wildly. She was no flimsy girl who's interest would flit from one man to another with every passing moment. Her emotion was to strong for that. Which was why he could never know.
Shaking off her thoughts to watch the movie, she frowned in disgust; both at the fact that she had spent so long thinking about him and because she had missed the whole beginning of the movie. Her frown deepened when she realized she had come in smack dab in the middle of a peak in Gaston's attempted assertion of male dominance. Her mind briefly flitted to Adonis and recalling that the end of the movie mirrored that a bit as well. She shivered and as she tried to pull her cape around her, felt it catching. Glancing to her left, she saw that the already drifting off Beast Boy had managed to sit on it when he flopped onto the couch. Eyebrow twitching in a combination of irritation and confusion at her predicament, she tried to think of a solution to her problem. He was fully asleep now as far as she could see and he was slowly careening towards her. After a bit, his face landed upon her shoulder, the whole side of his body pressed into hers.
Raven thanked Azar for the almost complete darkness as she had begun to blush profusely. And she had yet to solve her problem of being cold. The changeling's body began to fully tilt towards her and she felt something soft brush her knee. She looked down and saw his blanket-clad knee tapping hers. Did she dare? A shudder of combined cold and dread was sent down her spine. It concerned her how much she wanted something like this so she hesitated. But a few brightly colored emoticlones got their way in the end and her thin hand cautiously reached down and pulled at the edge of the blanket. Moving slowly so not to disturb the annoyingly adorable animorph resting on her shoulder, she managed to pull the blanket over her legs so it was encasing them both. She turned her attention back to the screen and began getting into the movie, Timid's thoughts of how hard this was going to be to explain when the lights came on only lingering in the back of her consciousness.